BAJA CALIFORNIA, Mexico (Special to PNS) Twenty years ago, the ideal candidate for a church-planting pastor in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was a 34-year-old married male with two or more kids, a dog and a mortgage. He was a charismatic leader who could draw people to himself, according to research done at the time.
Written by Jack Haberer, Outlook editor
Friday, 12 August 2011 14:55
The Minneapolis gathering of nearly 2,000 Presbyterians on August 25 and 26 looks to be a potentially historic event, perhaps the beginning of yet another denominational division to rock the Presbyterian world. Yet leaders of what formerly called itself “Fellowship PC(USA)” and now is using the name the “Fellowship of Presbyterians” are acknowledging that unity among its own supporters will be tested, given that the participants come to Minneapolis with a diverse set of expectations of what they hope will result.
They are coming to Minneapolis like stars flooding the night sky.
Landon Whitsitt, vice-moderator of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a pastor from Missouri, has been elected as the new executive and stated clerk of the Synod of Mid-America.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. Charlotte’s Presbyterian seminary has broken ground on a campus in the heart of the SouthPark area — a $6.5 million development that will give the school its first permanent home.
C. Benton Kline, Jr., a former president of Columbia Theological Seminary, died June 20 following a brief illness.
STORM LAKE, Iowa (Special to PNS) When Rick MacArthur turned 8
years old, he asked his family to throw a birthday party not for him, but for
his hero, rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Buddy Holly.
LOUISVILLE – The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission has dismissed a challenge to the ordination of Scott Anderson, which means that Anderson – a gay man who set aside his ordination in 1990 after congregants publicly revealed his sexual orientation – may once again be ordained by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
STORM LAKE, Iowa (Special to Presbyterian News Service) Anna Carter Florence, who teaches preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary, says she’s very interested in how the people of God talk about God.
LOUISVILLE – The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission won’t release rulings until perhaps Aug. 2 in two cases involving whether particular lesbian and gay candidates – Lisa Larges and Scott Anderson – can be ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
John Stott, an English evangelical who helped introduce the world to the global scope of the Christian movement and is considered one of the most influential evangelicals of his generation, has died.
Washington (General Assembly Mission Council) The Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, director of the
PC(USA) Office of Public Witness, was among about 12 religious leaders arrested July 28 in the
U.S. Capitol Building while engaging in public prayers for an end to the debate over whether and
how to raise the federal government's debt ceiling.
San Anselmo, Calif.
The Rev. Dr. James L. McDonald, a former executive with a faith-based organization that combats hunger, will take over as the 11th president of San Francisco Theological Seminary at a time when the financially strapped school is closing its Southern California campus.
Heather Wallace, a graduating senior at Whitworth University in Spokane, Wash., has won the 2011 Presbyterian Outlook Church-College Partnership Award.
AUSTIN, Texas (pNS)
C. Ellis Nelson, 95, who contributed to Presbyterian theological education over a 60-year career, died June 9 in Austin, Texas.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has awarded a $50,000 grant to an interfaith mission from New Jersey that is working to provide medical care and education in Haiti.
BATESVILLE, MISS. Paul David Snellgrove died peacefully with his family by his side on April 6, 2011, at age 71.
LOUISVILLE What will the Presbyterian church of the 21st century look like?
The votes are in. After roughly five years of discussion, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has approved a new Form of Government, intended to be more flexible and to give congregations and presbyteries more latitude in deciding how to do ministry.
College Ministries: The 219th General Assembly in 2010 voted to restore the denomination’s Office of Collegiate Ministries after an era of declining activity. A “strategic and sustainable plan” will be presented at the 220th GA in 2012.
LOUISVILLE Two conservative PC(USA) groups have announced an agreement to share the services of the evangelical leader Paul Detterman. In addition to his duties as executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal (PFR), Detterman will also serve as administrative consultant for Fellowship PC(USA) for at least one year.
Before the lights were barely out from Big Tent 2011, that’s the kind of complex question denominational leaders began digging into – in a quick, less than 24-hour confab held at a particularly delicate time in the denomination’s life.
Indianapolis (PNS) Many of the models of how we organize the church are dying, said the Rev. Susan Andrews, former General Assembly moderator and executive presbyter for Hudson River Presbytery, introducing a panel of innovative church leaders July 1 at the Healthy Ministry Conference opening luncheon here at the Big Tent.
Indianapolis (PNS) When Cynthia Campbell was growing up, she never experienced a woman in a leadership role in the pulpit of her home church in Pasadena, Calif.
Indianapolis (PNS) About five miles away from the excitement of Big Tent on the afternoon of July 1, a small group of Presbyterians worked with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows to dig a hole about six inches deep, eight feet wide, and 20 feet long. The area will eventually serve as the floor of a greenhouse made from an old bus stop shelter.
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